Curious to sleep with what secretsMona Lisais hiding beneath the new layer of varnish on her surface ? Up until late , prowess conservationists were take to physically remove a paring of a picture to get an exact cross division of its many layers . But thanks to Haida Liang and her squad of researcher at Nottingham Trent University ’s School of Science and Technology , prove the layers beneath the surface of a painting may no longer demand such invasive techniques .
Due to ethical regulations , conservationist can only remove a chip that ’s smaller than a millimeter in size from around an boundary or a damaged part of a painting so as to essay it under a microscope . But Liang ’s team , working with the National Gallery in London , has developed a non - invasive technique that utilise an updated figure of Optical Coherence Tomography ( OCT ) to create a hybridization section of the painting . According to Science Daily ,
Commercially uncommitted OCT setups are generally used by ophthalmologist to measure out the heaviness of a retina ’s typical layers , but their spacial resolution ( the turn of picture element constructing the digital effigy ) is n’t high enough to raise a elaborate function of a picture . for harvest the same amount of information from a non - invasive procedure as from an invasive procedure , the OCT setup has to apply a " broadband optical maser - like light source – a concentrated beam of light containing a wide range of frequencies . " This produces more accurate results as it can observe layers and changes that were invisible under the microscope .
As Liang and her co - authors explain in " Ultra - high resolution Fourier area optic coherency imaging for honest-to-goodness master paintings , " OCT allows big scale leaf sampling from any spot on the picture , and has turn out utilitarian in notice preparatory drawings , fine layer of varnish , and variety due to the environment .
This type of apparatus is n’t readily available , but once it becomes more far-flung , it could also be used to examine historic manuscripts and other artifact .
[ h / tScience Daily ]
